In the latest installment of my Lily Loves ABC, R is for reading. I love books, it’s also a very appropriate day for this post as March 3rd is World Book Day!

I’ve been into books since I was a little kid, I have two parents that read A LOT, so I’ve inherited multiple collections from them. When I was really young I realised I’d never be able to read all the books in the world, I can still remember how sad I felt at the thought.

I would say I’ve got a collection of at around 1000 books, I try to read everyday and it’s something I take quite seriously. I genuinely believe to be a journalist you have to be a reader, so to be a writer you can’t really be that good if you don’t read. It’s to do with the familiarity of words and playing around with ways to use them and different techniques. I did an English A-Level and a journalism degree so linguistics are something I truly love.

I love novels by cult writers like Hunter S. Thompson, William Burrows, James Ellroy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Some of my favourite books include City of God by Paulo Lins and The Beach by Alex Garland. I think my adoration lies with writers that have an ability to teach me something and broaden my mind. There’s an amazing book called ‘Future Shock’, written in the seventies. The author predicted a lot of the changes that would happen before our time and he got a lot of things right. In terms of how standardisation would affect the rest of our lives, etc. Publications that are forward thinking like this really resonate with my love of knowledge and forward thinking.

I love to read factual books, especially to learn about marketing, fashion history, fashion theory and social theory. So for this, I love Malcolm Gladwell, he’s also Gucci Mane’s favourite writer. Tipping Point and David and Goliath are my favourites by him.

Autobiographies are special to me, my favourite is by Malcolm X; I read that when I was thirteen. That’s probably one of my favourite books of all time because it is such an insightful piece of work that explores race and the civil rights movement in America. In addition to being a hugely important figure in hostory, Malcolm was a witty and powerful writer, with a fascinating life story. Likewise, I adore history books, especially City of sin by Catherine Arnold, it’s about the history of the sex trade in London, Peter Ackroyd’s Biography of London is great too.

Basically I love reading, so send me books! Read about my 5 favourite books of 2016 here.